Oh She Knows
by dancesontrains
Summary: The Sam Tylers in 1981 and 1973 aren't having the best of days. WIP.Warning:this fic spoilers episode 2.08 and includes slash.
1. Chapter 1

The obligatory disclaimers and warnings:

Life On Mars is not mine (unless you count the DVD boxsets). This fanfiction is not being used to earn any form of money (Pounds, Euros, Rupees, Galleons, conch shells, etc).

There be **spoilers **for the entire duration of the program, up to and including episode **2.08** (the finale).

This fic includes slash, i.e. a male/male relationship. If this offends you, there's always the back button.

Thanks go to my lovely betas, fanficwhore and boiledpotato!

Oh She Knows

Chapter One

It was 1981. Little Sammy Tyler was cosily tucked up in a hospital bed in some city he had never heard of before between London and Manchester. He stared up at the blank hospital ceiling. The big plaster cast on his arm felt really uncomfortable and he wanted to give it a good scratch but couldn't.

He is twelve. Of course, he knew none of this, but it was only his first crash onto a hard tarmac that will make any difference to his life.

1973

Sam found himself slammed into Gene Hunt's office wall for what must be the seventy-eighth time. Not that he'd been counting.

Gene bellowed at him for a few minutes more. Somehow, the younger man had learnt to block out the details of his superior officer's rants. But even he couldn't escape the Genie's green eyes. The tirade was finished with a 'So, Gladys, you are arresting that bastard Stead!' and a kiss that was meant for Sam's lips, but he had turned his head to check that the blinds were down and it only reached his ear.

Still furious, Gene paused to stare at Sam for a moment, then shoved him to one side and reached for the ever present comforter, if such a soft word could be used for a single malt Scotch whisky.

'Now just go, you fairy, and don't let me see you again until... '

The door clattered shut.

2006

Maya stroked a comatose face for the last time and sighed angrily. Sam had betrayed her. Not just by being on the bed with tubes shoved into his insides. The thought at the back of her mind whispered for just a second and was equally quickly shifted back into darker corners.

Soon after the car knocked him over and the brain tumour was found nuzzling away Maya went to Sam's flat to collect things that might just remind him of home and life. She hadn't been there since she moved out, but seeing it without his face, the face that shifted in her memories from laughing to frowning to a blankness that seemed to eat away inside him was what shocked her most.

His boyhood stamp collection with its musty tang of glue; some of the old seventies records in their ordered crumbliness. His deodorant. The perfume, which she had forgotten to take with her and found behind his shaving kit, brought the hot tears from her brown eyes. Again. Maya made herself look through his address book to see if there was anyone who would care enough to know, any old schoolmates or people he lived with in halls. As she flicked through 'S' she noticed that the answering machine was flashing. Three new messages. All from the same number, one that wasn't programmed into the machine's memory.

She pressed play. 'Hi, this is the residence of Sam Tyler and Maya Roy. Er, please leave a message and we'll get back to you... '

'Sam', a cooing voice growled. 'When are we meeting again? I know you said please don't phone this number, but your mobile's off...'the man giggled, and it didn't suit him. 'I bet your...'

Bleep. First message ended. Second message recorded at twenty-three-oh-five on...

Maya was still holding onto the address book. Just about.

'So', the same masculine voice purred, 'why aren't you answering? I really miss you. Are you alright? Is it something from work again?'

Pause for a few seconds.

'Or is it...' the message conveniently stopped just there.

Maya's hand hovered above the delete button, pretend this never happened, leave with what she had found and spend a few days by Sam's side, but the police officer in her came to the fore. She would see this to the end, like she had with a lot, lot worse.

...two thousand and six 'Is it that girl of yours? You know I hate pretending like this. You know that. Oh, well, she must have heard by now, hmm? Love you.'

All messages ended. To listen again, press one. To delete...

But by now Maya had run to her car. What she had really, really wanted to do was smash the poncey glass bottle of deodorant on his tiled floor and drop her perfume after it. Pure Bollywood.

But then, no Bollywood film she had ever seen involved the hero suddenly turning queer in the middle of the movie.

A.N. : This is one of the first fanfics I've written that might be worth reading, so con. crit is welcomed. All flames will be used to warm the author's cold feet.


	2. Chapter 2

See disclaimer in Chapter One.

Thanks go to fanfic whore for her helpful beta-ing.

Chapter Two

1973

Sam had weighed up the pros and cons, and had decided that his Guv was probably right.

For once, his mind had smirked to itself.

He then swiftly recruited Chris before Gene reappeared from his den, while facing a glare from the whiskered Ray, and drove to Michael Stead's last known address.

The two men waited on a grotty brick doorstep in the wrong part of town for respectable, law-abiding types, holding their official badges and looking at the weeds on the sides of the cracked concrete path leading up to the brown door. A small boy and an older girl, both equally scruffy, were watching the two men through next-door's window with curious faces.

Oddly, a little old lady with glasses and a cardigan answered their knock.

'Yes?'

'Police' they said in unison, showing their warrant cards.

Equally oddly, a tall male figure exploded down the stairs and past the three figures, knocking them all over. Sam found himself collapsed over a sprouting hydrangea bush while Chris was sitting in the long grass on the side of the foot path with a puzzled expression. The kids completed the scene by laughing behind their window.

Sam left Chris to look after the bruised lady and, despite her protests, call an ambulance, while he ran after the suspicious figure. The man was caught without too much fuss and a search of his pockets proved this was Stead.

He was taken back to Lost and Found.

1981

Sam was a little ashamed to admit this to himself, but he missed his mummy. Jake and the other boys in his class would have laughed at him if they knew that, so he tried to pick something else he really, really wanted. Aaah, telly. That would do. He stared longingly at the chest of drawers with its fruit and sweets and 'Get Well Soon' cards, wishing a telly could surface from the bottom of the drawers and zoom up to the top and he could watch whatever he wanted. Even those Hammer films his Mum had never let him see, not even when he had offered to give up a month's worth of pocket money. Sam knew they weren't that rich so that would've been a great help to her as well.

Oh, but for a _television_... Sam glanced at the loudly ticking clock on the wall and it was ten-thirty already! Golly! Maybe only police officers stayed up this late... He remembered that robbers usually came in the night, so most policemen would almost definitely be awake now.

He idled a few sleepless minutes thinking of what they might be doing right now, waiting in a station for scared people to call for help or out on the beat, eyes peeled for criminals of all sorts. Then the criminal would be arrested, the judge and jury would send him to jail and the world would be a little better. One night at a time.

Sam was busily imagining clobbering a robber with his massive cast when he heard a noise.

After two days, he'd grown used to the routines of all the smiling nurses and concerned doctors. But he couldn't remember ever staying awake for quite so long before , so he carefully moved his head up the wooden headboard so that he could find out what it was.

2006

Maya quickly left her ex's bedside before Ruth Tyler or anymore of the adoring relatives appeared. The thought of anyone, ever, knowing what Sam had done to her was something else to be hidden in the back of her mind until she could get to a bottle of red wine and think of nothing.

No men with short hair and curved heads that felt so comforting under her palm. No mothers with hopeful faces. Maya got into her slinky little Japanese car and turned the key. The engine grumbled as it normally did but the wheels refused to move. She stomped out, muttering curses, to find that she had parked on a double yellow and for once the wheel clampers were around.

She shrieked and hit her car's roof, 'Fucking Sam, that wanker, that ...' then took a deep breath and stepped out into the road in front of the hospital doors.

A car collided with her hips and made her fly at forty miles an hour through the air.


End file.
